Hey Poppa:

Some myths become realities with enough repetition. I think that most of us folkies might have turned to folk music in "rebellion" against the 50's Pap music, but if folk music was a rebellion, it had to be the wimpiest musical rebellion in history. Think for a minute about who the big folk artists were in the 50's.... The Kingston Trio in their matching striped shirts and white bucks were about as dangerous as Pat Boone. Burl Ives? Now you're really scaring me! And Jimmie Rodgers? Oh, Oh, I'm trembling with fear.
Harry Belefonte and the Weavers weren't excactly cut in the Marlon Brando mode, and nobody accused the Chad Mitchell trio of being threatening. John Denver? Man, I'd hate to meet him in a dark alley! The only folk singer before Dylan that I can think of who had any edge to him was my hero, Lonnie Donnegan.

You want to talk rebellion, you're talking Elvis, Gene Vincent, Little Richard, The Dominoes (Work With Me Annie & Annie Had a Baby,)
Etta James (Roll with me Henry, cleaned up to Dance With Me Henry,)
Shirley & Lee (C'Mom Baby Let The Good Times Roll,) and of course, just about anything by Chuck Berry.

The only real edge that folk music has ever had was Dylan, and maybe the Byrds (Dylan rocked out.) And my friend Lonnie.

The thing that was crazy about the fifties is the diversity of music. There were a lot of interesting, edgy folk orineted songs, too. Frankie Lane with Mule Train, Call of The Wild Goose and the theme from High Noon, the Fendermen with Mule Skinner Blues, black traditional songs rocked out like Bo Diddley, by the same, Hambone (a children's game song) Mocking bird and Didn't It rain by the Four Lads and Frankie Lane, several hits by Rusty Draper and 16 Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford.

The fifties weren't all Perry Como and Patti Page, or Poodle Skirts, Pat Boone and Frankie Avalon. It was a creative time for music unlike any I think this country has ever seen. Rhythm and blues and rockabilly have had a lasting effect, to this day and changed the musical landscape. I only wish that folk music retained more energy and inventiveness so that we'd hear it more on the radio..

The very first tape that I made for my wife Ruth, was titled I Only Have Eyes For You. It was the first song on the cassette and is still as exciting to me as the first day that I heard it.

Jerry